Page 75 of Pretend it’s Forever

Nobody was coming for me.

I tried to reach my pocket, where the one thing that may save me lay, but I couldn’t reach, not at this angle. My shoulders burned, and maybe if I tried to dislocate myself like in the movies, I’d be able to figure it out.

But I couldn’t.

I was helpless, and for now, there was nothing.

When he opened the trunk once more, I didn’t scream.

He pulled me out by my shoulders, and the moans sounded like screams to my ears.

“Shut up,” Cale snarled. He tossed me onto the ground, and I was grateful that I was low enough that I didn’t break a bone. But sharp pain and nauseating agony slammed into me from my shoulder, my head, all throughout my body.

And when he pulled up my feet and began to drag me, I twisted and fought, and I tried to kick. He slapped at me, but it wasn’t enough at this angle.

And when my gag fell out finally, I screamed.

“You fucking bitch. You don’t even know where you are. They’re not going to find you here. Nobody comes up here. Not since the last incident.”

I froze, as Cale pulled off my blindfold.

I stared into the eyes of the man that I thought I loved. The man that I thought had believed in me, but there was nothing. No hope, no emotion, just pure vacancy and hatred.

“You don’t even know where we are, do you?”

I tried to look around, my entire body shaking, but when I met Cale’s gaze again, he smirked.

“Your pretty little town. The one with your fucking name on it. The one that you didn’t let me have a single slice of because you’re a fucking selfish cunt. You and your family. Your dad and all of his cronies took everything for granted. They had all this money, and you didn’t take a single penny of it. What a fucking whore. A wasteful disappointment.” He backhanded me, and my head slammed into the picnic table behind us that I hadn’t even realized was there.

A ringing sensation echoed in my ears, and then Cale spit next to me.

“I could have had everything, and yet you did nothing for me. You were a waste. Not even a good fuck. You couldn’t even give me boys. Instead you gave me girls.”

“The girls. Please tell me—” I blurted, trying to get my wrist free.

Cale had always been good at knots.

Another shiver.

“The little brats are fine. I didn’t touch them. I’m not a monster.”

He said the words as if he believed them.

But this man was going to kill me.

And I was never going to see them again.

“You’re going to die on the land that bears your name. Because you were worthless to me alive. But when you’re dead? I’m going to get everything.”

He smirked, that wild smile on his face looking nothing like sanity.

“Cale. We’re divorced. That’s not how this works. You know that. Killing me is going to accomplish nothing.”

All I could feel was relief that he hadn’t touched my babies. But they were alone. All alone.

“Oh fuck off. My lawyers were always better than yours. We have our ways.”

He was believing his own lies at this point, anything for him to have power, and yet it was for nothing.